"Le Rideau Rouge" is an investigation on the murder of an actor-director (Michel Simon) murdered by his wife and her lover (Monelle Valentin and Pierre Brasseur) before the representation of Macbeth in which this trio plays. The fiction joins reality. French policemen investigate during the representation (Michel Simon being replaced) and discover the story of Macbeth.
"Le Rideau Rouge" is the unique direction for cinema by André Barsacq who became the Director of the Théâtre de l'Atelier in 1940 after Charles Dullin left it. The movie is naturally shot in the theatre (stage, dressing rooms, backstage) and on the place in front and certainly a bar around. It is surely one of the rare shooting by a director on his own place. Anouilh and Barsacq describe what they might have lived in their entourage in use of drugs and alcohol. "Le Rideau Rouge" is an impressive and lucid testimony of theatre, with a scene not censored who tells much on the decadence of theatre. This weird movie has to be rediscovered urgently despite of a police part weaker than the theatre part.
André Barsacq is more wellknown in cinema as a decorator (for Jean Grémillon) but mostly worked for theatre wih great names.
"Le Rideau Rouge" is the unique direction for cinema by André Barsacq who became the Director of the Théâtre de l'Atelier in 1940 after Charles Dullin left it. The movie is naturally shot in the theatre (stage, dressing rooms, backstage) and on the place in front and certainly a bar around. It is surely one of the rare shooting by a director on his own place. Anouilh and Barsacq describe what they might have lived in their entourage in use of drugs and alcohol. "Le Rideau Rouge" is an impressive and lucid testimony of theatre, with a scene not censored who tells much on the decadence of theatre. This weird movie has to be rediscovered urgently despite of a police part weaker than the theatre part.
André Barsacq is more wellknown in cinema as a decorator (for Jean Grémillon) but mostly worked for theatre wih great names.